These are all great. Thank you! We are already at almost $700 in dining out since the 10th of January, and have a birthday dinner to go to this Saturday which will probably put us at $775.
Vegas will never get cut. I WOULD SELL MY HOUSE BEFORE I STOPPED GOING TO VEGAS.
Use the cash envelope system if for nothing else other than going out. I promise you it will make a huge difference. At the beginning of the month, cash out the month's going out budget and put it in an envelope. When the cash is gone, you are done going out for the month.
DH and I have always been good about living within our means, but we didn't really pay attention to how we spent. That changed when we decided to be intentional about paying off our student loans. Making a budget at the beginning of the month, "telling your money where to go," in the words of Dave Ramsey, has transformed our life.
Post by DefenseAgainstTheDarkArts22 on Jan 29, 2015 11:05:42 GMT -5
I am not someone who cooks either but have found I am more willing to do it if I only have to cook one thing. For example, BLTs. I only have to put the bacon on the pans and then let it cook. Toast bread and cutting tomatoes takes as much as time as putting my pizza on a plate. We also have pre-made spaghetti sauce so we can make chicken spaghetti, parmesan, etc pretty easily.
Nugget, do you have a meal assembly place like Dream Dinners near you? It's a lot cheaper than eating out and it takes the shopping, prep, and meal planning out of it. You will have a bunch of dinners in your freezer and you just have to pull a few out to thaw each week. Making the meals is really easy.
I was just going to suggest this - I do Let's Dish, which is the same concept. I "split" the meals onsite and it works out to like $12/meal and is so quick and easy on a week night.
Post by discogranny on Jan 29, 2015 11:54:53 GMT -5
We are horrible out dining out all of the time. We both work and don't have children, so while we can afford it, it just sucks to see such a huge amount of our income literally being eaten away each month.
What we have done is we always make sure we have peanut butter, wheat bread and decent cereals in the house. If neither of us is willing to cook or we didn't thaw anything out, it's PB&J or cereal for dinner. This has been working well because it's kind of a punishment to have to eat those things, especially if you have to eat them multiple times per week. We've started cooking more just to avoid this punishment. We've also stopped going to dinner on weeknights, which saves us like $150-$200 per week.
DH and I have always been good about living within our means, but we didn't really pay attention to how we spent. That changed when we decided to be intentional about paying off our student loans. Making a budget at the beginning of the month, "telling your money where to go," in the words of Dave Ramsey, has transformed our life.
Yes. We use ClearCheckbook.com, and have budgets set up for monthly things like fun money, groceries, dining out....the problem is that we have been blowing past them. We're in the same boat - not living outside of our means, but would like to become more intentional about putting money away and funding some stuff that needs to get done for the house.
Gotcha. One thing that helped us prioritize savings was setting up separate savings accounts for different goals - house projects, car stuff, and vacations - in addition to an emergency fund and an "everyday" savings account for unexpected, but not emergency, situations. We transfer money to these accounts at the top of the month so that the money simply isn't there for the variable expenses.
Ya meal plan is a big one. I stopped getting my morning coffee and I make a list before the grocery store and I stick to it. I add up what its going to cost as I go that way its not a huge shock when I check out.
Never grocery shop hungry! Eat a full meal and then go. You'll make better choices
This doesn't work for me... I'm so full that NOTHING looks good!
That's kind of the entire point. Presumably you've already meal planned and made your list, so you just buy what's on it and nothing else. Impulse buying and budgeting are generally not compatible, lol.